Within 48 hours of launching its offensive against Iran, Israel secured air superiority across the country, including over Tehran. Israeli fighter jets were able to carry out bombing runs from within Iranian airspace, reducing reliance on costly long-range missiles.
As the Wall Street Journal noted on Sunday, this level of air dominance is something Russia’s far larger air force has failed to achieve in over three years of war in Ukraine. That failure has contributed to Moscow’s forces being mired in attritional trench warfare and suffering heavy casualties since their unsuccessful attempt to swiftly capture Kyiv in February 2022.
Israel initially launched its airstrikes using its fleet of fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighters, upgraded with proprietary Israeli modifications. With most of Iran’s air defense systems now neutralized, older aircraft such as F-15s and F-16s have joined the campaign. The Israeli Air Force has also begun deploying short-range JDAM and Spice precision-guided bombs—less expensive and more readily available than missiles—with devastating results.
The most remarkable achievement by the Israeli Air Force to date came on Sunday when IAF jets targeted and struck an Iranian refueling aircraft at Mashhad Airport—2,300 kilometers from Israel. According to an IDF spokesperson, this marks the longest-range strike carried out so far in Operation “Rising Lion,” matching the farthest distance ever recorded in the history of the Israeli Air Force.
AMAZING FEAT, BUT DID IT DO THE JOB?
Following the waves of Israeli attacks, critical questions remain: How close is Iran to assembling a nuclear weapon? Can Tehran still carry out its nuclear ambitions despite the damage, and will Israel ultimately succeed in dismantling the program before it reaches the point of no return?
The bottom line is that while Israel has inflicted significant damage on Iran’s nuclear program, it has not dealt a decisive or irreversible blow. Iran still possesses sufficient quantities of enriched uranium—and, more importantly, the technical expertise—to rebuild. Even after the IDF’s large-scale offensive concludes, Tehran will likely be able to restart its nuclear efforts and move toward producing a bomb in a short period of time.
An atomic bomb relies on the principle of nuclear fission—when a neutron strikes an atomic nucleus, splitting it into two, it releases a significant amount of energy. This triggers a chain reaction as more neutrons hit other nuclei, producing a massive energy release in the form of a nuclear explosion.
The key material for this process is uranium—specifically the isotope U-235, which makes up just 0.7% of naturally occurring uranium. To be usable in a bomb, the concentration of U-235 must be significantly increased in a process known as enrichment.
The process begins by converting solid uranium into gas, typically at a facility like the one in Isfahan. This gas is then fed through centrifuges—high-speed spinning cylinders that separate uranium isotopes by weight. With thousands of centrifuges linked together, it’s possible to enrich uranium to 90% U-235 within about a year—sufficient for a nuclear weapon. Iran operates such enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow.
WHAT HAS THE ISRAELI AIR FORCE DONE SINCE FRIDAY?
The uranium conversion facility in Isfahan was bombed and appears to have been taken out of operation. The enrichment facility at Natanz was also struck, with a large portion of its centrifuges reportedly destroyed—though not all. The Fordow facility, located 80 meters underground, remains untouched so far—likely because penetrating it would require advanced bunker-busting bombs, which only the United States currently possesses.
The next stage involves the technological assembly of the weapon itself—constructing a metal core surrounded by dozens of explosive lenses or fins. These must be precisely synchronized to detonate simultaneously, creating a symmetrical implosion that compresses the enriched uranium. This compression initiates the nuclear chain reaction by triggering a neutron source, often referred to as a neutron gun, which sets off the fission process that results in a nuclear explosion.
The challenge is that this phase of Iran’s nuclear program—the weaponization process—doesn’t occur in large, easily identifiable facilities like Natanz. Instead, it takes place in small, dispersed laboratories that are much harder to locate and target. For this reason, Israel has focused on disrupting the human infrastructure behind the program—specifically by targeting the Iranian nuclear scientists leading the effort. Since the beginning of the current campaign, 14 scientists have reportedly been killed in Israeli operations.
Even before Israel launched its attack, Iran had already stockpiled a significant quantity of uranium enriched to 60%. This material was likely hidden in remote locations across the country, beyond the reach of immediate strikes. To further enrich it to the weapons-grade level of 90%, Iran would need just two to three weeks—and only a small number of centrifuges—to complete the process.
Still, if Iran succeeds in building a bomb despite the Israeli attacks, it would need a reliable delivery system—primarily ballistic missiles. In recent days, Israel has concentrated its strikes on missile production facilities, aiming to cripple Iran’s ability to deploy a nuclear warhead.
An IAF attack on a surface-to-air missile launcher in Tehran:
